After the Tea
by Aegle
Summary: More and more she'd felt too old for the skin she was living in.


_Author's Note: Hope that Rowling, T.S. Eliot, the White Stripes, and Damien Rice aren't too upset for my borrowing their characters/lyrics/poetry. That being said, here's a one-shot for you, and I don't believe there are many spoilers although it's set during HPB. I think this one might have been me exorcising some demons._

**

* * *

**

**_After the Tea_**

**I.  
**_the window is turning blue_

She sat on the fire escape, overlooking the alley below where her shadow stretched out over trash bins, distorted. Dangling shadow-feet, swaying every now and then, touched the edge of a rotting cardboard box--a great source of interest to a rummaging stray cat. It had rained earlier, and now the city was cold. It _shouldn't_ have been this cold. Not yet. Her nose was running, too, and she sniffed. Behind her, the window opened, and he stuck his head out, leaning forward on the windowsill.

"You don't even have an excuse to be out here," he muttered, climbing out of the window and frowning at her. Tonks could see his breath, hanging in the air. She watched as he rummaged in his coat pocket for a tattered pack of cigarettes and settled in beside her.

"I was going to jump off," she replied. "You ruin everything."

Remus snorted, lighting a cigarette with cupped hands and giving her a sideways glance. "Not a bad idea, that."

"But you prefer a slow death, yeah?" She nodded to his cigarette, sniffing again. The smoke rose up and was gone, and she pulled her coat tight, squeezing her lips together.

"It's good to have a vice," he said. "Or several."

"Right," she sighed. "Well, give it here, then. I'll take up a new hobby." She reached out her pale hand and he passed her the cigarette, not saying anything. But he watched as she lifted it to her lips and inhaled. _Little hands_, he'd told her once, _you've such little hands._ He'd been drunk then, and he'd captured her wrist and studied her fingers, at the time coated with cracked, chipped pink nail polish. Little hands and little fingernails, chewed down absently at her desk. And she coughed, turning her head away and handing back the burning fag. The cat that had been sulking around earlier had fled, and now the wail of a siren--not far off, it seemed--echoed and reverberated its way up to her flat. There was a momentary dot of orange as Remus flicked ash over the railing.

"It's fucking madness," she said after some time. She was staring at the building across the street. A woman was at the window, flinging her hands in the air as she talked on the phone. Tonks could relate. Exasperation. Frustration. She let out a disbelieving laugh. "To be missing it. But I do, you know? I _do_ miss it. We just spent so much time, there. All of us." Of course, all of us was really _the three of us_ was now _the two of us_ was nothing, because she wasn't even sure there was an _us_ anymore. Of if there ever had been.

He shrugged, and it was harder to see now, because the darkness was getting thick and the dim yellow light shining out from behind them wasn't good enough. "Routines are changing. I suppose it's normal to miss it," he said. Lately, it had been this way. She felt that more often than not he was humoring her in his responses. She wanted to hit him then, but instead took the proffered cigarette and furrowed her brow.

"It's new, but I'm not bothered by that. Isn't going to make me cry into the pillow at night to pack up my stuff and move to a new place. He wants me stationed in Hogsmeade, now." She threw a look at him. "I told him you--"

"Are you planning on sitting out here all night?" Remus interrupted.

Tonks stared at him, watching him sit there on the fire escape with his eyes looking ahead. "I'm considering it."

"Right, well, I'll leave you to it," he muttered, climbing to his feet and retreating back into the flat. The was the sound of a rickety window opening and shutting behind her, and then, silence. She rested her head against the freezing rail, and closed her eyes. Car horns honked and sirens wailed below.

**II.  
**_here's to the man with his face in the mud_

"Well that's the problem, innit? You don't _come _home, you fucking live in here."

Tonks took a slow drink of her pint. She leaned back against the grimy wall, trying not to watch this haggard woman argue with her husband. It was hard not to. She was yelling, now. Shrieking. Her hair was graying and hanging in frizzy curls around her face. Her husband sat, getting steadily more red in the face--anger, Tonks thought, not shame--until he took her by the arm and the pair left, bypassing Remus as he entered the pub, looking weary. He slumped into the chair across from her, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Was having a chat with Dung," he said, by way of explanation.

She frowned. It made her look older. More and more she'd felt too old for the skin she was living in. Her elbows now rested on the splintery tabletop, and she muttered, "I've got an early morning, tomorrow." When he looked at her she continued, "You can…well, you can do what you want. If you come in late, try not to make a lot of noise, all right?"

She was up before he got the chance to respond, walking quickly out of the pub and into the street, where a spotty teenage boy was clutching his stomach and learning over the curb. She passed him, though, heading up the street and rounding the corner, head ducked down until she nearly knocked into a large man in a ripped sleeveless shirt. His skull tattoo was laughing and grinning on his fleshy arm. A murmured apology, and then she slipped into an alley and Apparated home.

The flat was nearly empty, as she'd taken most of the important things to Hogsmeade over the last couple of days. The new place was smaller, had fewer windows. It overlooked the street with its bright shops and creaked when the wind blew. It was sparse as well. Most of the frivolous decorations she'd discarded--Chinese lanterns and ornamental trinkets displaying Hindu gods. She didn't need them, really.

Her furniture, thrift-store items bought and made her own, well, it would have to be transported. She thought about just leaving it. She could buy new, fix it up. She liked old furniture, worn in the right places and informal.

Tonks took off her coat, tossing it over the back of the sofa and stretching. He was in that pub, drinking. Probably wouldn't come back this night. Perhaps he'd go find Dung. And she was standing, contemplating him…for what good? They'd been avoiding each other for weeks in the same flat. She was tired of not talking, of being in the same room as him and staring out the window because he was playing the detached game. He retreated into his mind and stayed there, every once and a while murmuring such pleasantries as "pass the salt" or "meeting tomorrow". When he fucked her she knew his mind was someplace else, and when he left afterwards to withdraw into the living room or the kitchen she gathered the covers around her and tried to sleep, wanting to cry and not really sure if she could.

She made a cup of tea, drank it at the Formica-topped kitchen table, and then fell asleep on top of the blankets, all awkward angles and one arm draped over the edge. When he came in, hours later, he sat down on the sofa and covered his face with his hands. She stood in the doorway, between bedroom and living room, and heard him murmur between his palms, "I'm sorry." He sighed, and it was one that made his whole frame shudder, "I'm such a fuck. I'm sorry." She didn't know how to interpret it, but it didn't matter.

He'd forget he'd said it, in the morning when coffee was brewing and light was shining in through the dusty blinds.

**III.  
**_we'll gather hibiscus flowers_

"We went out for curry once and you kissed me," she said abruptly. "It was a good kiss."

He stopped, midway through a step, and she walked after him to the top of the landing, leaving her flat door open. Inside, the teapot was whistling. She ignored it, and he turned on the stair, looking back at her with his mouth hanging slightly open.

"What?"

"It was a great kiss, and I think you meant it. Did you? Because you know, I don't know what to think anymore--"

"The pot--"

"Fuck the _teapot_, Remus." She ran a hand through her hair, making it stand crazily on end. "I don't think we're going to be seeing each other much after this, and I'm fucking insane for even trying, but I'm doing it anyway. You do crazy things, when you love someone. Like me, me I sit around and think 'what's going on in his head?' and you don't talk. You don't talk, and it's not like we were ever bearing our souls to each other, but you used to tell me things. You don't _ever fucking say anything._ You-"

"You want to shut that thing _off _in there?" A man in a gray undershirt was standing in his doorway, and from inside the sounds of the television wafted out into the hall.

"Piss off," Tonks shot back, loudly, and the man lifted his hands in the air, slouching back into his flat. He shut the door with a bang, and Tonks let out a breath.

"Listen," she said, and rubbed her face, "listen, the thing is, Remus, I do, all right? I do love you. A million things in my life have been total cock ups and this thing with you, well, I thought in the beginning that it wasn't. Thought it would work."

He looked like he was about to say something, and then closed his mouth. His hands were in his pockets and she could tell he was itching to go out and light a cigarette. Then, with a wry sort of smile he replied, "As you can see, I'm not good. For you, or anyone."

"Why's that? I'm thinking it must be choice."

"Yes, well, you would, wouldn't you?" He shook his head, taking a backwards step down the stairs. "Not that simple. Why are you telling me this, Tonks? Love and--"

"Do you know…how many times," she muttered and clutched at the sleeves of her shirt, "just…no, it's fine like this. It's perfect. I'm going in."

He looked up at the ceiling and let out a breath. "What are you wanting to hear, Tonks? Would you sleep better at night if I said it? It's better leaving it be."

She bit her bottom lip, and moved forward enough to tug him by his coat, until the pupils of his eyes were matched with hers, dark and unreadable. "No. It's not. Just say it…then you can go, and do whatever the hell it is you think you're meant to do. Save the world, be a martyr, whatever."

"Tonks--" and there was something in his voice she didn't recognize. Fear, perhaps. He lifted his hand as though to touch her face, and then withdrew it, settling instead for briefly touching a stray lock of hair. It was an familiar gesture. She almost leaned into him, and stopped herself just before.

"Say it," she said. She felt very much the little girl, unable to read his eyes or his expression. Her hands were wound too tightly into his coat, and they were starting to hurt from the grip. A little girl with little hands. "_Remus_."

He kissed her, then. His hands had slid up to her face and somehow his lips touched hers, and she tasted smoke and his mouth for a few slow-paced seconds and then it was gone. He'd released her and was walking down the stairs with his hands shoved back into his pockets and the back of his coat turned to her. She thought for a wild moment about chasing him down those steps or down the street, to wherever he planned on going, but instead she sat down on the top of the landing, bare feet against the cool cement, and listened to the screeching teapot in her flat and the pounding of her neighbor's fist against the wall, the broken, disjointed voices on a television game show, the sound of Remus's shoes against the stairs and the eventual creak of an opening door as he stepped out of the building. Her lips were warm.

It was a long time before she went back inside.


End file.
